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U.S. Supreme Court weighs antitrust dispute over Apple App Store

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday will take up Apple Inc's effort to bury a lawsuit seeking damages from the company for allegedly monopolizing the market for iPhone software applications and forcing consumers to overpay. The justices will hear arguments in Apple's appeal of a lower court's decision to revive the proposed class-action lawsuit by a group of iPhone users. The lawsuit accused the Cupertino, California-based technology company of violating federal antitrust laws by requiring apps to be sold through the company's App Store and then taking a 30 percent commission from the purchases. The iPhone users, including lead plaintiff Robert Pepper of Chicago, filed the suit in a California federal court in 2011, claiming Apple's monopoly leads to inflated prices compared to if apps were available from other sources. Though developers set the prices of their apps, Apple collects the payments from iPhone users, keeping a 30 percent commission on each purchase. One area of dispute in the case is whether app developers recoup the cost of that commission by passing it on to consumers. Developers earned more than $26 billion in 2017, a 30 percent increase over 2016, according to Apple. The company, backed by Republican President Donald Trump's administration as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told the justices in legal papers that siding with the iPhone users who filed the lawsuit would threaten the burgeoning field of e-commerce, which generates hundreds of billions of dollars annually in U.S. retail sales. The plaintiffs, as well as antitrust watchdog groups, said closing courthouse doors to those who buy end products would undermine antitrust enforcement and allow monopolistic behavior to expand unchecked. The plaintiffs were backed by 30 state attorneys general, including from Texas, California and New York. Full details can be found on OUR FORUM.